


whatever I can give you

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: For Even a Day [7]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, Royalty AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25335376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: “What changes?”“I don’t know. But now’s as good a time as ever to figure it out, yeah?”
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Series: For Even a Day [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705639
Comments: 26
Kudos: 78





	whatever I can give you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Interpolations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interpolations/gifts), [JewishDavidJacobs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JewishDavidJacobs/gifts).



> I had TROUBLE with this fic, guys. This is the longest I've gone without posting/updating since I started writing Near Miss. (there are a lot of factors in that but it feels very strange to be aware of.)  
> ANYWAY I promised some happy royal Javid and I think I've... mostly succeeded at that!

“I’m in love with Davey,” Jack blurts.

The man in question coughs, having accidentally inhaled some of his tea in surprise.

“Water is wet,” Sarah says lazily, draped across Katherine. “The sky is blue. Racetrack is dumb as a box of rocks.”

“Sarah,” Katherine says. It sounds like she’s aiming for scolding, but it just comes out amused.

“What? I thought we were stating obvious things,” says Sarah.

“This is a big deal!” Jack whines.

“It is, honey,” says Katherine. She elbows Sarah.

“Yeah, Jackie, it is,” Sarah agrees. “I’m sure it’s important that you’ve, uh, realized this very obvious thing.”

“He didn’t realize it,” Davey says finally. “He’s _telling_ you.”

Katherine hums. “I see.”

“What about you, Davey?” asks Sarah.

“I’m in love with Jack,” says Davey, shrugging. “No offense, Kitty.”

“None taken,” Katherine says lightly. “Are you two going to, uh, do anything about that?”

“You could run away together!” says Sarah. She’s grinning as she says it, but her face falls. “You wouldn’t, what am I talking about.”

“Don’t even suggest that,” Jack says sharply. “I would _never –_ “

“Jackie,” Davey cuts in gently. “She knows. She was _joking_.”

“I know,” says Jack. “I just –“

“I know,” says Davey. He turns back toward the girls. “We’re trying something new. Verbalizing it, you know. But that’s – it’s new and complicated and feels very weird.”

“Sorry, Sarah,” Jack says. “It’s just – god, if we could –“

Katherine waits for Jack to speak again, and when he doesn’t she says, “You know that you two can be whatever you need to be with us, right? Even if you can’t run off and get married, I _hope_ you know by now that you don’t have to be Prince John and Royal Advisor David when you’re with the two of us. Just be Jack and Davey, be in love. That’s alright.”

Sarah nods. “I’m sorry I joked about it, I should’ve known that would be a sore spot.”

“No, Sar, it’s fine,” says Jack. “I shouldn’t have bitten your head off.” He sighs. “Look, I think things are going to be different now.”

“How different, Jack?” Davey asks softly. “What changes?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admits. “But now’s as good a time as ever to figure it out, yeah?”

\--

They’re at a party – nothing big by castle standards, but a few dozen people nonetheless – and for once Jack and Davey are socializing separately. Davey is talking slightly distractedly with his father, not sure where Jack has gotten himself to.

 _Oh_. Jack’s fingers (always _freezing_ ) thread through Davey’s and he presses himself up against Davey’s side. For all that they’re now in full contact from shoulder to hip, it’s a subtle thing, really. Jack is always close to Davey; no one would look twice to notice that maybe he gravitates just a hair closer now than he used to, or that their entwined hands are tucked subtly between them.

“Hello, Prince Jack,” Mayer says.

“Mayer,” Jack replies, nodding politely. “Can I borrow your son?”

“When have I ever said no?” says Mayer. “Just remember that the two of you are expected to be here at least another hour.”

“ _Yes_ , Dad,” says Davey.

He lets Jack pull him away without another word.

“Are you alright, Davey-mine?” Jack whispers, his thumb running up and down Davey’s. “I came over because I was bored, but you look a little pale.”

“Hmm?” says Davey. “No, I’m fine. I – did you know that my father put together your arrangement?”

“What, with Kitty?” says Jack.

Davey nods silently.

“It never occurred to me to wonder whose idea it was,” Jack replies, shrugging. “It didn’t really matter, you know? If it wasn’t Kit it was always going to be _someone_ , I s’pose.”

“It was always going to be someone,” Davey echoes.

Jack squeezes his hand. “We like Kitty, though.”

“Love Kitty,” says Davey. “Just feels odd to know it was Dad’s idea, you know?”

“I suppose so,” says Jack. He tips his head onto Davey’s shoulder for a moment – Davey’s shoulder being the perfect height for Jack to rest his head against comfortably. “Hey, I know we can’t duck out, but you wanna hunt down the girls and talk shit about people for a while?”

Davey smiles. “If we weren’t in a room full of people right now, Jackie-mine, I’d kiss you.”

\--

For all that he’s spent ten years – _ten_ , because he’d confessed to Jack a few weeks ago that he realized what he was feeling almost four whole years before Jack – not saying the most important thing on his mind, Davey has always been the talker between them.

Somehow he has found a way to talk _more_.

(Jack doesn’t mind; he could listen to Davey talk for hours on end. Which he’s done before, and if he has his way he’ll spend the rest of his life doing.)

Because, of course, he’s now saying all kinds of things he didn’t say before.

“Jack, love,” Davey says softly, brushing Jack’s hair away from his eyes, “read to me? I want to listen to your voice and not have to think about anything else a while.”

“’Course,” Jack answers, a warmth flooding through him at the simple request. Still, he can’t help but play a little. He reaches out to press his own hand against Davey’s forehead, then cheek. “Davey Jacobs, looking for a brain break? _Asking_ for something? Are you feeling sick, sweetheart?”

Davey bats at his hands. “I try to take advantage of some time alone with you, and how do you repay me? Ruthless teasing.”

“I can think of a way to take advantage of time alone together,” Jack says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Jackie,” Davey says, drawing the syllables out in a whine. “That is _not_ the kind of intimacy I’m looking for right now.”

“I know,” says Jack. He kisses Davey’s forehead. “Go pick a couch. Do you care what we read?”

“Whatever you want, Jackie-mine,” Davey says, sounding a little tired. He flops onto the largest couch in Jack and Katherine’s sitting room, settling into the cushions. “As long as it’s not, like, bridge specs, I’m happy. I’m fucking exhausted and I just want to look at your pretty face and listen to your voice and maybe take a nap.”

“One bedtime story, coming up,” says Jack. That warm feeling is back, and this time he doesn’t ruin the moment. He nestles in on the couch across from Davey, their legs tangled together, and starts to read.

\--

On Jack’s birthday, Katherine quietly presents him with a box. Inside are two silver metal bracelets.

“In my father’s kingdom, newlyweds exchange rings,” she says, fiddling with her own. “It’s meant to be, like, a physical reminder of your relationship and your commitment and all. You and Davey aren’t married, but – but I thought it might be nice for you to have _something_.”

“Katherine Pulitzer Manhattan,” Jack says quietly, “you are the best wife I could’ve ever asked for, you know that?”

Katherine grins. “I know. I thought about necklaces, it’s a little more subtle, but I’m pretty sure there’s symbolism in circles for relationships so –“

“It’s perfect, Kit. They’re perfect,” says Jack. He kisses her cheek. “Thank you.”

They’re simple and small, nothing flashy. Easy to hide under a sleeve. Jack isn’t one for wearing long sleeves, generally, but Jack wears jewelry regularly enough that one more thing won’t seem out of place. Davey doesn’t, but Davey gets cold easily and wears long sleeves more often than not.

Jack knows he’s wearing it, though, even when it’s tucked under the cuff of his shirt, because he can hear the small sound of it bumping the table as Davey writes. And because Davey – who in almost twenty years Jack has never known to be a fidgeter – fiddles with it _constantly_.

(And because it’s Davey, and of course he is.)

There’s an ache in his chest every time he sees Davey push it back so it won’t be seen before he starts to write, but this is what they’ve signed up for. In the company of everyone but their siblings and Jack’s wife, they can’t be anything but close friends. The closest of friends, but –

Jack wishes, on occasion, that he were a worse prince. That his Davey were a worse nobleman. That they could run away together and not drown in guilt.

(That they could even _fantasize_ about running away together without drowning in guilt.)

\--

Jack makes a point of making _time_ for Davey.

They’re both busy men, and a free evening has always usually been spent at the very least with the girls, if not also Race and Charlie. But now, they’re often spent alone, tucked away in one of their rooms together.

And, at the end of the day, that time is greatest shift in their relationship.

 _I’m yours, as much as I can give you_.

Because maybe Jack touches Davey constantly, now, but he was rarely out of arm’s reach of Davey if he could avoid it before.

Because maybe Davey verbalizes things he wouldn’t have said in the past, but he never had a _shortage_ of words for Jack before.

Because maybe they have a physical reminder of their relationship now, but the relationship existed before.

It turns out that _as much as I can give you_ is time – time together, time alone, _time_ where they aren’t pretending to be anything but what they are to each other.

The thing that’s sort of remarkable about it is that they don’t always do something together in that time. Sometimes, Jack will read or paint while Davey works through calculations, or Davey will piece together a puzzle while Jack works on a project from the queen. They’ll just quietly exist in each other’s space the way they sometimes used to when they were kids, before everything got complicated.

They’re both busy men, and they choose to spend the little free time they have together.

They choose each other, over and over.

One evening, Jack is painting and Davey is reading and it hits Davey _hard_ that they could’ve been doing this all along. He sets his book down abruptly, staring over at his – at Jack.

Ten years – they’re twenty-five now, and Davey first looked at Jack and knew what he was feeling was love when they were fifteen –

Or, at least, _six_ years – because they were nineteen the first time _Jack_ called it love – of lost time. Of time they’d spent stewing in the fact they could never be together openly, because if Jack hadn’t married Katherine he would’ve married someone else and it would never have been Davey in a hundred years.

Of time they’d spent taking that to mean they couldn’t be together _meaningfully_ at all.

Time they’d never get back.

“Davey?” Jack says, looking up from his painting as if he felt Davey’s eyes on him. “Davey-mine, what’s wrong?”

“Jack, I love you,” Davey says.

Jack smiles, but his eyebrows still betray his concern. “Oh, is that all?” He moves around his easel, nudging Davey’s legs aside so he can sit with him. “I love you, too, Davey.”

“Do you ever wish –“ Davey cuts himself off before he can finish the thought. He doesn’t want to voice it, how _desperately_ he wishes something could’ve fallen differently for them. He reaches for Jack instead, wrapping his hand around Jack’s wrist. The metal of his bracelet is cool under Davey’s fingers, and so is Jack’s skin (though less) because Jack runs colder than Davey does.

“Yeah,” Jack says quietly. He doesn’t need to hear what Davey is thinking to know that he wishes all the same things as Davey.

Jack leans on Davey, fitting neatly between Davey’s side and the back of the couch like he was meant to be there.

Davey takes a deep breath. There’s no point getting hung up on the time they lost.

He tries, instead, to memorize this moment and tuck it away in his mental storage for a day when he and Jack can’t find time together. The familiarity of the whole thing is grounding; even in the time when he and Jack were sure they could never have anything like they have now, they fit against each other like puzzle pieces.

Jack has one arm across Davey’s chest, and Davey’s still holding onto his wrist. He slides his hand away from Jack’s bracelet to interlace their fingers instead. Davey’s cheek rests against Jack’s forehead, Jack’s hair brushing against his skin. Their legs are tangled together – more a function of Davey’s than Jack’s, just because Davey has miles of leg and was already scrunched up slightly to fit comfortably on this couch.

It’s such an easy, quiet scene that Davey can almost forget that this is, at best, a stolen moment.

Something they were never meant to have.

But they have it, damn it, and Davey Jacobs is not letting go.


End file.
